


we could find a reason to leave (but you will always have part of me)

by teastainedpages



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teastainedpages/pseuds/teastainedpages
Summary: despair does not come quickly, though it does hit hard.hope is just the same, she finds.(or: peko reflects.)—'together we killed the colonywe'll take away the heart in mea looser grip, failed to notice itpulling away when you reach for it'— colony - now, now





	we could find a reason to leave (but you will always have part of me)

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'colony' by now, now
> 
> (listen to it while you read if you'd like)

The air is chilly, though not too terribly cold, and the sky is blue-white and cloudless; it is very late, she thinks, or perhaps very early. The branches on the trees outside scratch against the stretch of the sky, scrape against the would-be stars that she'd be seeing if the world was different. When she breathes, she sees it—like smoke, it dissipates into the air and is forgotten by everything else.

"What're you thinkin' about, Peko?" She hears, from some place right beside her (she finds that she feels far from the voice, though). When she cranes her neck to follow the sound, Fuyuhiko is grinning softly at her.

"Us—er, us and our classmates. The world," she breathes again, and the soft white cloud that leaves her mouth dances between their faces for a moment before she continues, "Everything. Everything... before."

"And _how're_ you thinkin'?"

"I don't understand," she says, simply, because she doesn't. Although much more out of her shell these days, she is still a woman of few words. He does not mind.

He props himself up, leaning on his elbow with the side of his face in his palm. He licks his lips for a moment, and thinks. "Y'know, like, are you thinking about all that in a bad way, or like—like in a nice way? Like, are you upset that yer' thinkin' about—?"

She chuckles, softly. "It is good, I think. I am reminiscing more than thinking, maybe. Forgive my poor word choice."

He laughs, too, and shakes his head before he lays down on his side. "Nothin' to forgive, hon..." He mumbles, and she smiles a little at 'hon'—the pet name means he's sleepy. She shuffles a bit closer, and he takes one of her braids between his fingers; he runs his hands over her hair, yawning, and grins tiredly. He is exhausted, it seems, but he seems content.

They doze.

———————————————————

Back when the sky was blood and the ground was open and gaping, a macabre joking-metaphor of the hell on Earth, despair had settled among them. In them, like a disease, it festered and bubbled and itched. It begged. For what she did not know, but it _begged_.

Her hair is loose, left in wavy loops caressing her back and shoulders; the style of it holds a new, morbid casualness that she does not enjoy. It gets in her eyes when she fights, and she has to wash blood out of it often. It is frustrating, but Junko said that she looked pretty with her hair down, and her young master had seemed to agree.

They're in a car, and she doesn't know who it belongs to, but whoever it is they are dead—she doesn't remember if it was her who killed them. She smells blood, but both her and her young master are covered in it, so she doesn't quite know where it is coming from.

"Where are we going?" She says, quietly. Her voice is raspy, and she thinks she may need water. It crosses her mind to ask for some, as she knows he usually has a bottle with him, but she remembers that tools do not ask for things. They _do_ things, at the expense of themselves if necessary, and they follow. Tools do not lead. Tools do not feel. Tools do not think.

"My father's house," he says, and his voice is muffled from the cigarette between his teeth. "Figured we'd pay my folks a visit, eh?"

"Yes, I see," she nods along to his words, like she nods along to all of them. Her young master is different, nowadays, and he does not do things for the same reasons as he once did. There is an ulterior motive to everything, now, and she can no longer track or predict it. She can only follow. Still, there is a question: "Are we here to kill your father, young master?"

"Somethin' like that," he replies gruffly, and she wonders if he used to sound like that. He was a chatterbox when they were children, she recalls—noisy and unapologetically aggressive. His aggression is different now, and he no longer yells and groans and complains as he used to; everything he says now is dark and deliberate, quiet and low and horrible. This man is not her boy. She wonders if he ever was.

When they enter the house, it is in shambles and disarray, and for a moment she thinks she can see a flicker of reflection and feeling in his eyes (or, eye, rather) when her young master spots a shattered family portrait. He holds it in his callused hands, turns it over. She sees his Adam's apple bob, sees him blink away what could've been tears. He presses his lips into a thin line, breathes, and tosses it to the floor with a clatter.

His father's old study is covered in dust and paint chips and blood, and the man sits at his desk like it is all nothing but decor. He is haunted and hollow-looking, though, (there is a distant part of her brain that thinks, 'like father like son') and she wonders if he is scared. Master had never felt fear. She wonders if he is just now learning what it is.

Her young master says something that she doesn't catch, something whispered and faint and _angry._

"Fuyuhiko, I am your _father—!_ "

"You aren't _shit, you fucking bastard!_ " her young master howls, and it is the first time he's yelled since this has all begun. Despair had given him new clothes, a new tone; it did not give him a new heart, though. He is crying, now. Sobbing, ugly and angry and swallowing down his own tears to work up the gall to scream. "Y-You _hurt all of us!_ You beat my mother, you beat me! You beat _Peko,_ you—!"

"Peko? Peko isn't _anything!_ You gonna kill me over a fuckin' _girl?_ Not even, right? Y'gonna kill me over a servant, eh? Are you—" his father is screaming, too, now standing. His chest is puffed out, but his lip quivers.

Her young master swallows thickly, fists clenched at his sides; he shakes with a rage she hasn't seen since his sister died, since everything with Sato. It scares her, she thinks, if she can remember what fear feels like correctly.

"Peko," he says, softly, and he turns to her. His tears have dried. She reaches for her katana, worn on her back, but he puts a hand out. Stop, it tells her. Instead, he turns his hand and faces his palm up. She blinks, and reaches for his gun that he has her keep strapped to her thigh. She hadn't understood why he'd had her keep it there, though she believes she does now; she has a sort of power over him, this way. She hands it to him, and he paints the back wall in blood before she can put her hand back down by her side.

"Young mast—"

He takes a step or two, quietly, and takes her chin in his hands, tilting her head up to face him. His eye is swirling with something not-quite humane, something gross and strange and rotting and _despairful._ "Peko," he mumbles, his voice just barely carrying. His tears have dried, though his eye still remains puffy from the crying. "You're mine?" It comes out as a question rather than a statement, a query instead of a command.

"Yes," she says simply, because she is, and her eyes shut as he presses his mouth to hers.

Their first kiss is a bloodied bittersweetness, bathed in the death of his late father and the birth of the end of the world.

———————————————————

When everything ends, and things are done and new and they are all struggling to pick up the pieces, Peko speaks very little. This says a lot, she thinks, because she didn't talk very much to begin with. When she does speak, though, it is important, and the weight of her words tends to wreck her at times.

There are several boxes scattered about, filled with simple knick-knacks and toys and such that they hope they can perhaps put some practical use to, and so they sort through them. It is a routine, a cycle. Open the box, empty it, pick what you want or need, put the rest into the box, tape it shut. It is simple. Mechanical. It is something she should understand.

When her young master puts his hand out, though, and turns his hand so his palm faces up, she doesn't hand him the tape like she should. Instead, Peko reaches for her thigh, and chokes once she realizes what she is doing, what she's done. She screams a sob into her hands.

"P-Peko, what the fuck—?!" His breath catches as he speaks, and he goes to catch her before she sinks completely to the floor. He pulls her into him, slowly, and she thinks she can feel the ground beneath her again. "Hey, hey, hey..." He murmurs nothings into her hair, runs a hand down her back. His fingers twitch and shake, but it is still comforting and comfortable. Still them.

" _Fuyuhiko,_ " she says, shaking with the force of her voice, and it is just a name but it _isn't_. It is so much more now. So much different. It makes his eye go wide. "I don't know what to do," she whimpers, helplessly, and she has never been more lost. "Tell me what to do, please. I—I don't know how to... I don't _understand—!_ "

He cups her cheek and presses a kiss to her forehead, gentle and soft and fond. He presses his forehead against hers after, lets the tip of his nose brush the bridge of hers. "I can't tell you what to do, Peko..." He starts, "But we can figure it out? If you want... L-Like—Like a team, or something."

"Not a team," replies, and they stand together slowly, rising from the awkward crouched position on the floor. "Just us."

He laughs, and she sees hope in his gaze. "Yeah, just us. Together."

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him, softly and with more feeling than she's ever shown.

———————————————————

After they get settled completely into Jabberwock Island, after the Future Foundation is beginning to get back into its usual order, Peko sits with Sonia over breakfast. It is more like brunch, she theorizes, due to the time, but Sonia asked her for a little breakfast together, and so it is breakfast.

"You know, before you and the others had woken up," Sonia starts, smiling softly and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, "Fuyuhiko would sit beside where you were, and he'd talk to you."

"Talk?" Peko repeats, "Talk to me?" The thought seems a bit strange, and it saddens her. Was he truly so upset? It haunts her to think that she caused him distress.

"Yes, he did—he would tell you all sorts of things! His plans, what we were all up to, how he missed you," she replies, beginning to chuckle, "How much he loved you."

Peko chokes slightly, just barely swallowing down her orange juice before coughing into her hand. Sonia laughs wholeheartedly as she winces, going on about 'how cute' it all is.

"Really, Peko, you must know, do you not? He _adores_ you. I recall once he had been especially passionate, and he was apologizing, over and over and over again. Something about his father, about his house. He said you were more than what you think. I don't understand him, and I surely do not understand what he means, but I believe you do."

Peko wipes her eyes and smiles.

"I do."

———————————————————

Nowadays, on blue-white skyed mornings like this one, they lay in the grass and look up, and they doze.

"Mm, hon..." Fuyuhiko mumbles into her hair. His arm is tossed over her, her face tucked into the crook of his neck.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too," she says simply, because she does, and he pulls her closer.

They rest.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading
> 
> p.s. these children deserve love and i intend to give them it goddammit


End file.
